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MSAD 58 building renovations heading to referendum

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Phillips Elementary School

PHILLIPS – MSAD 58 school board directors approved scheduling a referendum at Thursday’s meeting, with voters to decide whether to utilize funds from the state’s revolving renovation fund to support improvements in two district schools.

A public hearing on the improvements will be held at 5:30 p.m. on April 13 at Kingfield Elementary School, where the regular board meeting is also scheduled. The referendum will be held in the towns of Avon, Kingfield, Phillips and Strong on April 25. An affirmative vote from the district as a collective is required to issue the bond for the renovations.

The renovations would impact Mt. Abram High School, a 47-year-old building, and Phillips Elementary School, which was built back in 1988. MAHS-related projects would include improving ventilation and air exchange in the gymnasium, reinforcing the roof and adding preheated air exchange, and improving ventilation and fire suppression systems in the kitchen.

The MAHS project would be funded through a $619,106 loan, of which $327,074 would be forgiven. The remaining $292,032 would be repaid by the district.

Phillips Elementary School’s project consists of elevator improvements, as well as renovations in the handicapped bathrooms to meet Americans with Disabilities Act standards. There would also be accessibility improvements.

A little more than half of the $591,646 loan would be forgiven, leaving $279,079 to be repaid by the district.

All of the projects are considered Priority 1 or 2 by the Maine Department of Education’s school revolving renovation fund. If approved by voters on April 25, funding would be provided by the Maine Municipal Bond Bank. The portion of the loan not forgiven outright would be repaid at 0 percent interest.

Superintendent Susan Pratt said that she intended to visit each town prior to the referendum. The public hearing, a necessary step in the process, will be held on April 13 at 5:30 p.m. at Kingfield Elementary School. The referendum will be on April 25 in each MSAD 58 town.

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22 Comments

  1. The total bill to be paid by the taxpayers is $571,111 according to these figures. What happened to the discussion of consolidating some of these students and closing a school? As I look around, other towns/districts are doing this as enrollment drops. MSAD 58 enrollment is dropping through the years. Ask for the figured just at Mt Abram the past 15 years. It is about enrollment, please do not say it is not and it is for the children. Offering more, diverse programs are also for the children. Kingfield decided not long ago to not leave the district by not a large margin. I wonder what Kingfield parents thoughts are now that they/ taxpayers have to foot a big part of this bill and Kingfield school has some major repair needs, not to mention the driveway?

  2. Borrow it and fix the buildings…NO WE ARE NOT closing the#6 high school in the state of maine based on dwindling numbers and people wanting to save a buck…I got zero money in savings and zero in any 401K or any other savings or retirement account but I won’t give up on the children of this district to save a buck. FIX THE SCHOOLS and keep them open …BE A LEADER NOT A FOLLOWER the world has enough followers be the shepard not the sheep

  3. The schools are a continuous drain on property owners. I agree with Governor Lepage when he suggest we consolidate districts and eliminate redundancy in administration. It absolutely crazy that we have so many layers of management in areas of the state with dwindling enrollment numbers. How about we look into staff at these schools paying for their health care. Why should the taxpayers be supporting these folks when most of the jobs we work have us paying a percentage of our salery for coverage. Look at sports, these should be pay as you go. Schools should cover the basics during the work day that’s all. Where do all the free meals come from? Are there means tests in place for all the free stuff we hand out? We created this mess by not questioning yearly budget increases and automatic step wage increases. If you think your property taxes are obscene now, just wait until you start flushing more money down this school drain. The Maine taxpayers have empathy but enough is enough.

  4. Please show up to a meeting and get yourself educated. The districts are locked into labor contracts. Nothing can be changed until the next contract comes up.

    Consolidation is an answer, however, we sailed that ship. The voters of the district said, “No”. No one want to close their community school.

    Cutting Sports? That’s laughable. More people will show up to a meeting if something is cut in athletics before they would show up for the cut of lets say a “math teacher”. For many students, athletics is all there is in their life. And Mt. Abram has a Pay to Play program already in place.

    The Free Lunch Program is based on income and is subsidized by the USDA.

    https://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/NSLPFactSheet.pdf

    Subsequently, some of regular funding is based on our the Free and Reduced Lunch count and the mill rate of your town. I do not call getting a public education and having lunch at school getting a “bunch of free stuff”. Lunch is the only guaranteed meal in some homes.

    MSAD58 receives tuition from other towns not in the district and unorganized territories. As that enrollment drops that means “less revenue” is coming in.

    Our school has a sizable Special Education department. There are Individual Education Plans to carry out. There is no choice in those expenditures. Federal law says that we have to do everything stated in those plans.

    Our debt service for the Strong school has finally been paid off. Inspection only qualified Phillps School and Mt. Abram High School for the renovation loans being offered based on the criteria that was stated on the application. The board is very much aware that there are many other areas that need attention. This particular bond is for these two school because they were listed as Priority 1 and 2 issues. The other issues are not. A lot of projects have been put on the back burner. You can only band aid things so many times.

    The budget hearing is on April 15 at 5:30 p.m. at Kingfield Elementary School, please come and share your thoughts and solutions.

    All Board meetings are public and opportunities are given for public comment at the beginning of each meeting for items on the agenda.

  5. ” no choice “, ” locked in “, ” get yourself educated “.
    It reads like as taxpayers we have no choice because we are locked in. If we as taxpayers don’t understand this it is most likely because we are not educated.

    While board meetings may be public opportunities to observe and comment I have never seen a chance to sit in and negotiate on salary contracts.

    I do not believe that without school lunches children would actually starve. I am not saying that there shouldn’t be a food program at schools just maybe look at less expensive ways to offer reduced price, or no cost meals.

  6. Why does it always boil down to the same few things to try and save money? How about the towns take over maintenance/cleaning and snow removal of their own schools? Why do we hand the district money for snow removal for them to keep some of it and just contract it out. Cut out the middle man taking their cut or add another employee to towns payroll and do it yourself. Same as janitorial work, get around the contract by making the janitors town employees or contract a cleaning agency.

  7. Curious: I think you have raised some good thoughts…If cleaning, plowing, yard maintenance were handled by each town, as a “town paid” employee, it seems the expense would be less. It would also return some of the control to the individual towns. There may be other areas where this would work also…Certainly, it is worth considering and working the figures to compare and explore options. We cannot continue to have the same conversation every year when the only thing that changes is the constantly increasing bill to taxpayers.

  8. Just to clarify a comment by Slynn

    “Consolidation is an answer, however, we sailed that ship. The voters of the district said, “No”. No one want to close their community school.”

    There was never a vote for the voters of the district to consolidate or close a particular school. This discussion was at the school board level and never went to vote. School Board decided it was not in the best interest and it died on the school board floor.

  9. MSAD 58 and (then-)MSAD 9 voters did in fact vote consolidation down by a wide margin.

  10. @administrator…Didn’t they also try to consolidate with the Carrabec school district as well, I know that idea was shot down as well

  11. John, Closed school board meetings are designed to keep the voters and taxpayers out of the decision process. The reason is simple, the school board wants autonomy, the voters are just a pesky unpredictable variable that the education elites don’t deem worthy. Observing some of the comments here, it would appear all the school union talking points are prominently on display. Locked in, special ed education plans, sacred sport programs, etc. get Governor Lepage’s staff involved, they have the answers to the pat “we just st can’t do it position” being assumed by those seeking to dump more of our money into a failed system. Take control of your spending or else schools and welfare programs will destroy our state.

  12. Consolidate! With Sue Pratt as Supt., maybe a business manager, a principal in each school with secretarial assistance and of course fewer schools. This brings about big cuts in administration and teaching staff. The rest will follow, such as negotiations to lower benefits, pay to play,maintenance etc. Look at the map showing RSU9 and MSAD 58. Do they not look good together?

  13. The district voted to not consolidate with MSAD 9. There was NEVER a vote in each district town for the districit to close a school in the district or close Mt Abram and tuition out. Internal consolidation is what is needed.

  14. As a former school board member in another district, closed door “Executive Sessions” are only for confidential matters such as personnel or student issues. There are no closed school board meetings. It’s the law. All meetings are recorded and available on the school website or public television, if you have it.

    Educational Elitists, Peter? The last time I knew School Board Members were ordinary citizens elected by their fellow citizens to represent. I know when I represented my town, I never considered my job at the local Walmart something that an Educational Elitist would do.

    Maybe when, Slynn said “get educated”, perhaps she/he meant to get educated on the process. I don’t think she/he questioned anyone’s intelligence. She/ He is right, contracts are locked in until the next one comes up, otherwise, the district will have a hefty lawsuit. Special Education services are also mandated by law. Again by not following IEPs, a hefty lawsuit could follow.

    Curious, those are some great thoughts. Ideas need to be shared with the school board. You should go to the hearing and present that idea.

  15. It really boils down to this, K~12 public education has become so expensive that people like myself can not adjust incomes to support the ever rising costs. So we as a society/community need to come up with a better way of funding this system.
    If not people like me will continue to complain about what we deem as wasteful spending. Eventually there will come a point where the school systems at present will not be sustainable. In other words there won’t be enough taxpayers to support it.
    I have heard the same questions from the public and the same answers from the board. And every year in every community I have lived in it is the same results, higher fees.
    I would think that with all we spend and as good as the education should be that someone could come up with ideas to fund a sustainable public school system.
    I’m not pointing fingers just expressing my thoughts as to what I observe.

  16. I am proud of MSAD 58. As a mother who has had one child graduate and have 4 others in PES. I love our small school, I love that the classes are small and they have access to one on one interactions with their teachers and those in the special education dept if they need some help. If they were shipped off to another school where there are 25+ kids in each class they have less one on one time. I have sat through board meetings and listened to what they are doing to try to keep budgets down and meet the needs of the students, it is by far a slippery slope to try and meet everyone’s needs. Teachers already pay out of pocket for different needs in their classrooms and they deserve pay raises just like any other person working, so to say they don’t deserve the pay they get is just laughable. They deserve insurance, they deserve what any working person in any other job gets.
    When my eldest son graduated each child in his class already had a plan for after school, EVERY student had a plan either college, military or a job already lined up. How many schools can say that? MSAD 9 cannot… We benefit, and our children benefit from keeping our schools small and local.
    If you do not like what is happening in the school board meetings, attend the meetings, come prepared with an idea to express to the board. If you are just going to complain and not assist with providing a solution you are just contributing to the problem.

  17. Mom, 58,

    The argument is not what you think the children need or want. Rather it is the expected cost to the taxpayer. Maine is presently burning through 83 percent of it gross income on welfare and education. The children are now competing with the various welfare consumers for available state funding. The taxpayers get the squeeze here, not the consumers. Sure insurance for all sounds good but, most companies have instituted some form of pay as you go. Health insurance is not a right it’s a service you or your employer buys. Small school room classes sounds great but, most of us went to schools with 1 teacher, no aids and when we graduated we managed to find our way in this world without a life-plan. How many of your neighbors will have to sell their homes in order to support schools with declining enrollment and rising costs? Consolidation and elimination of both staffing and administrators are viable solutions to the costs are community is facing. The taxpayers have had enough of the spiraling costs, it simply isn’t worth keeping the system the way it is. Have a good day.

  18. Peter,
    That is exactly what the argument is… What do the children need verses what they want and how as a community do we provide for them to succeed in life. How to educate them on what is going to happen once they leave the confines of their home and community to seek higher education. If we do not educate our students with the best that we have then how are they going to be contributing to society? If they have guidance at school they get prepared with scholarships to help pay for college or trade programs that will allow them to find work out of college and become taxpayers themselves and return to our community (hopefully) to encourage the next generation.
    I understand the argument about increased taxes and the burden that we bare to educate our children. When I became a resident in MSAD 58 taxes were low and in comparison to some neighboring towns they are still rather low. As for insurance, I want teachers who are here to educate my children and that they are amazing teachers and if we want to have teachers that are amazing we need to be able to offer them benefits. If not we would have a high turnover rate and that would not help anyone especially the students.
    However; times have changed, the economy has changed and we carry the burden of what our next generation of children are going to need and if we lose sight of that we might as well just give up on them all together. I firmly Peter that the number of residents in MSAD 58 that want to close schools and eliminate jobs are far less then those who want see that our children get what they need and are willing to pay to see that they do.

  19. MSAD 58 Mom,
    Unfortunately, you are probably correct about the number of residents in SAD 58 in favor of downsizing and lowering costs vs. those wanting more money and benefits for schools. This may be due to the number of employees of the district who would personally benefit from the increase and those who have children enrolled in the school system. The retired folks are struggling to pay property taxes, prescriptions, and daily living costs on a fixed income. Most folks employed outside of the district do not have their insurance paid for them by their employer, yet they are expected to pay for another’s insurance, nor is an annual raise a sure thing. While we grew up, as Peter said, in a time when teachers did not have aides, and every administrator did not have an assistant, we were well prepared and accepted at colleges. Increasing the money spent does not improve the education received. Something must be done to stop the spiraling budget and return it to a level we can all afford. Perhaps those with children in the district need to pay a higher portion of the expenses (sports, extra-curricular,for example)..Maybe now is the time to return some of the custodial and maintenance jobs to individual towns…We need to seriously consider all options and do the math to explore possibilities. Every year we are told there is nothing that can be done about wages as they are under a contract…but when it is time to negotiate and renew contracts, there is no news that possible cuts are even discussed..

  20. If consolidation is so great why is our high school number 6 and others in the area aint even on the list of top `100? cause we have good teachers and a good working system…the hell with what Lepage wants …I want our kids to get a good education…I see one other person here commenting who agrees with me about keeping our schools operating and giving our children a good education …I’d give up anything to help my children or any other kid…speaks volumes about the kind of people posting here…you guys only care about saving a buck and flushing all the hard work of our education staff down the drain …some things should never be for sale…for any money. I am proud of our high school and our middle school …FIX THE BUILDINGS AND TEACH OUR CHILDREN

  21. John Wilbur, I agree we have one of the best schools in the state, I think other ways can be found to say money without taking away from our kids education. I gave a couple options before that I think should be looked into. I am sure that there is many many more. Maybe leasing busses might cut our transportation budget instead of purchasing them.

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